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Taking Lessons, and Confidence, From the Water

She had rowed a boat, in the East River. She had learned to swim. She had eaten an oyster; it was gross, yes, but it was a challenge, and she had met that challenge. And now, in a final rite of passage, she was at the helm of the Lettie G. Howard, the historic 125-foot schooner that is her school’s classroom-on-the-Hudson.

Yes, she, Jennifer Mendez, 15, the girl from Brooklyn who used to be afraid of the water and everything related to it — fish, boats, bugs — was steering the Lettie up the river, along the Upper West Side. The captain of the ship, Denise Meagher, was standing by. But with her hand on the wheel, Jennifer felt as if she were the captain, responsible for the ship and everyone on it — the crew, her ninth-grade classmates and their science teachers, Roy Arrezo and Ann Fraioli.

A little later, Jennifer would write in her class journal, “I feel as if I can do anything.” Even, she confided, make the honor roll.

The mission of Jennifer’s school, Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, is to raise academic achievement by connecting students with the harbor that surrounds the city. The school’s founders say that by learning about the vast estuary — its history, its fish, its ecology — and by developing the skills to navigate it, students can gain the kind of confidence that Jennifer displays.

Murray Fisher, who founded the school with Nathan Dudley, a former high school teacher in the Bronx, and Richard Kahan, the president of the nonprofit Urban Assembly, says he began gaining his own confidence growing up on a lake, and around boats, in Virginia. After college, Mr. Fisher, now 33, went to work for the Hudson Riverkeeper, an environmental group, which inspired his idea for a maritime-related school.

The college preparatory curriculum emphasizes science, technology and the environment, and hands-on training in everything from boatbuilding to water-quality testing with the idea that graduates might become the next generation of boat captains, water resource managers and scientists. The big draw for Jennifer, and many of her classmates, are the regular trips on the Lettie and other boats. They have navigated the Hudson, Harlem, Bronx and East Rivers, the Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek.

“I feel like I know more about the water than most New York people,” said Jennifer’s classmate Luis Escobar, 15, who was talking on the Lettie during a lull in the action.

“There are PCBs in the Hudson River,” he said, worrying aloud. “They were dumped by General Electric.”

One undeniable benefit to being on the Lettie, especially on a hot day in June: “It’s better than being in a classroom,” said Narendra Grujjar, 15, who was basking in the cool breeze.

The Harbor School has 390 students in grades 9 to 12, 70 percent Latino and 30 percent black, with many from the Caribbean. Last year’s graduation rate was 63 percent, Mr. Fisher said, nearly triple the rate of the old Bushwick High School, which once occupied the same building. The citywide average is about 50 percent.

For these students, just getting to the water can be a challenge. Cut off by highways and private development, and still overcoming a long history of pollution, the harbor can sometimes seem as distant and inaccessible to city kids as, say, the Great Plains.

Photo

Alexandra Taveras, left, Jennifer Mendez and Jose Arroyo during an exercise in trust. The ninth-grade students took a day trip on the Hudson River aboard the Lettie G. Howard.Credit
Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Plans are under way to move the school to Governors Island, but that will not happen for at least another year. Meanwhile, each trip on the Lettie requires a 90-minute subway ride from Bushwick, with three transfers, to West 79th Street, and then a walk across Riverside Drive to the boat basin.

Rowing on the East River involves an equally long subway ride to East 96th Street and a hike to the F.D.R. Drive, where the students unload the boats from a container onto a mini-trailer, which they wheel to the water.

“I was afraid I would fall off and go into the water,” Jennifer wrote, describing her first rowing lesson. But soon, with the help of her teacher, Ms. Fraioli, she wrote, “I felt like a natural.”

“Today I feel happy,” she concluded her entry, “because I faced my fear.”

It may be difficult to get to the river, but when it comes to swimming, Jennifer and her classmates are lucky. There is a pool in the basement of their school, and swimming lessons are required.

“The first time I went in the water, I freaked out,” Jennifer said.

Her friend Ashley Charles, 14, recalled, “One of the first things she said to me was, ‘Me and water don’t mix.’ ”

Narendra Grujjar also got off to an inauspicious start in the pool. “I drowned three times,” he said with astonishing calm. But his teacher was there to save him. Narendra stuck with it, and once he figured out the breathing part, he was fine.

In January, the class traveled to the South Street Seaport Museum, which owns the Lettie. “I had no idea what the day would hold,” Jennifer wrote in her journal. “I had heard rumors that I would have to eat an oyster (which terrified me because I refuse to eat any type of seafood).” Eating an oyster is one of the rituals of the Harbor School.

“I knew I couldn’t walk away from this challenge,” Jennifer wrote. “I had to try it! So I soaked my oyster in lemon, got out my green tea, looked down at this creature with guilt and said sorry and then slurped the oyster when no one was looking. It was weird and gross, but I still did it, which made me proud; however I did feel bad for the oyster.”

And then it was June, just before graduation, and Jennifer was at the helm of the Lettie, dreaming about its days as a New England fishing boat 100 years ago.

“I can imagine the Lettie’s stories,” she had written in her journal earlier, “her bad weather, her bottom deck filled with fish awaiting her newest journey.”

But this is New York City, and the day had its own drama. Earlier, when Ashley was at the helm, she had coolly guided the Lettie away from an approaching Circle Line tour boat. O.K., so it wasn’t Moby Dick — Ashley plowed through the novel on her own last year — but she had protected the Lettie.

“I love the Lettie,” she said. “She’s like an actual person. She’s like our grandmother.”

By 4 p.m., they were heading for the subway, and the 90-minute trip back to sweltering, landlocked Bushwick.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Taking Lessons, and Confidence, From a Classroom on the Water. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe